Babies On The MOVE is committed to educating parents with information and hands on experiences that will help them foster their baby's motor development through therapy and class-based services.

Services Provided:

Expert guest speaker for community events

Day care staff training

From the time they are born, babies are growing and learning how to move. This idea is called motor development, and it starts at day one of life. Motor development can be generally grouped as gross motor and fine motor skills, though the two often overlap. Gross motor skills include larger movements that incorporate the whole body. In the first years these skills include learning to roll, sit, crawl, stand, and walk. As children get older, gross motor skills also include things like learning to jump, climb, run and skip. Fine motor skills typically involve smaller, more precise movements and muscles. Early fine motor skills include reaching, holding objects, and moving things between hands. In later years, fine motor skills also include things like learning to write, tying shoes, cutting and managing fasteners like buttons.

While motor development generally progresses in a well known manner, we have the opportunity as caregivers to help foster or impede this progress. This progress is often thought of simply as the developmental milestones of rolling, sitting, crawling and walking. However, there are many building blocks that a baby must have in order to achieve each of these skills. Parents often hear about the importance of tummy time and developmental milestones but aren't given the tools necessary to help their children with these activities. With an abundance of information on the internet, often contradictory, it can be difficult for parents to determine what is truly beneficial for their child.

Babies On The MOVE provides easy access to expert pediatric physical therapists who guide parents to help their child meet developmental milestones and have fun along the way. For infants and young children with special needs, Babies On The MOVE offers in-home physical therapy services allowing families to eliminate travel time and focus on their child's specific movement needs in their natural environment. For typically developing children, we offer infant movement classes which allow parents to learn about motor development and become comfortable and confident in their ability to help their child excel with their motor skills in a fun and social setting.

Providing your baby with opportunities to move is vitally important for the development of their motor skills, cognition, visual, vestibular, and skeletal systems.

Since the onset of the Back to Sleep campaign by the American Academy of Pediatrics in 1994, the incidence of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) has decreased dramatically. However, at the same time, there has been a significant increase in developmental delay and flat head syndrome among infants. According to a press release by the American Physical Therapy Association, pediatric physical and occupational therapists who are seeing an increase in early motor delays in infants identify lack of tummy time as the primary contributing factor.

With the strict focus on back time for sleeping, many parents are also positioning their babies on their backs most of their awake time. The additional use of infant positioning equipment which places baby on their back in a curled up position means these babies are not getting as many opportunities to move as they need. Increased time on their backs and being positioned in equipment puts them at greater risk of developing “flat head syndrome” which is technically known as Plagiocephaly or Brachycephaly. When not addressed early this flattening of the head may require use of a cranial molding helmet to reshape the head, and may result in a permanent deformity if left untreated. An additional concern when infants spend a significant amount of time throughout the day in a variety of infant equipment is the development of “container baby syndrome”. This term refers to a collection of problems that may develop with movement, behavior, weight, vision, the vestibular system, and/or cognition.

As physical therapists seeing an increase in infants with developmental delays and head shape abnormalities, we are passionate about educating parents to prevent these issues and provide an environment for optimal development. Our classes provide opportunities for parents to learn about infant movement in detail and gain hands-on skills to confidently promote their typically developing baby’s motor skills. Regular access to experts in pediatric movement provides parents the opportunity to get their questions answered and continue learning as their baby changes from month to month.